admin |
July 21st, 2008 |
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Today, we have rolled out an important update to Wixi! It includes several new features, the main one being the integration of YouTube into the desktop and a bunch of bug fixes, to make the service even more comfortable and intuitive to use.
Let’s review the most noticeable changes one by one:
- YouTube player integration: we have made Wixi framework capable of playing media files and embedding Flash players from other contents providers as Wixi. The first service which we have integrated being YouTube and its world famous Flash video player:
We of course are planning to add several other sources, so you can centralize all your media files on Wixi, even though they are hosted on other service providers! - YouTube Bookmarklet: no need to upload your own video files, or capture .flv videos to reupload them, you can now add your favorite YouTube videos onto your Wixi account, and play them inside your Wixi desktop.
How? Simply click on the YouTube button in the topbar, and follow the instructions to install our bookmarklet tool.
Then, while watching videos on YouTube.com, click on the bookmarklet button and voilà!
The video is added to your wixi account. - YouTube search: you can now search contents on your Wixi desktop, on the public Wixi network and from YouTube. Results will appear like normal results, and by clicking on ‘Add to my Wixi’, the video will be added to your desktop, ready to play!
- YouTube channels: are you lacking inspiration for videos to watch? You know there are hundreds of cool videos on Internet, but don’t know where to start looking for them?
Then, follow the guide! We have added a new button in the topbar: “YouTube”. When you click onto it, it will show you this window:
These are the “YouTube channels”, which show you the best videos available on YouTube, sorted by period and with multiple criteria: most rated, most viewed, most discussed…
Check the preview & description and add in a single click the ones you like to your Wixi Desktop to play them! - upload your documents with the Flash uploader: store online your .DOC, .XLS, .PPT and .PDF documents onto your Wixi account, and download them from anywhere whenever you need them! Your documents are automatically put as private, so only you will be able to access them.
- new ‘Pending Friends’ tab in the dashboard: access directly all your friendships requests through this tab, for easier and faster friends management.
New friendships requests will also appear automatically in the tab, without needing you to refresh your browser page. - compatibility with Firefox 3.0: since the ‘Download Day’ of Firefox 3.0, we have organized a Bug fixing marathon to make Wixi fully compatible with FF3. The results? Wixi runs amazingly faster with FF3!
- rewritten back-end using ‘Events’: with this system, the Wixi desktop gets even more dynamic, and is able to refresh all elements (storage bar, new messages, new friendships requests, uploaded files status…) without you having to refresh your browser. This ‘event’ system is also the ground work for next exciting incoming features, such as “Who’s online”, “Chat” … applications.
- a lot of optimizations and bug fixing, like usually
We will keep developing new features and integrating other Web 2.0 services, to make one (or several ) step towards turning Wixi into THE media-centric online desktop and backup storage service that you need!
Seb
Wixi Blog Admin
